A Sword Forged
by Morninglight
Summary: Sequel to A Whelp Become, part of the Klostrun (Sandstorm) series. Lia returns to the Alik'r at Swindler's Den.


Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Trigger warning for violence and fantastic racism.

…

"What in the name of Tall Papa-?"

Lia pulled her scimitar from the collapsed corpse of the cutthroat she'd just dispatched and wiped its blade on the woman's rough fur cloak. "Your 'friends' pissed off the Jarl of Whiterun," she told Kematu as he emerged from the innermost grotto. "Just like your incompetence left me stuck with a sizeable bounty because I had to finish your job for you."

"You're one to talk when Alduin flies freely," the Crown retorted harshly, hand flying to his scimitar's gilded hilt. "And Ulfric Stormcloak is not yet King of Skyrim."

"Why are you still here, Kematu? You were supposed to take Iman back to the border for trial and execution." Lia's grip tightened on the plainer hilt of her own weapon. Sharkskin to provide a slightly roughened grip, solid brass pommel for delivering blows to the back of the head if need be.

The leader of the warband raised his chin arrogantly. "I was assigned by the Ansei to keep a watch on you. Some are… discomforted… by one of lesser blood being permitted to follow the Way of the Ansei Shehai."

Lia's turquoise eyes glittered in the flickering light of a single torch. "Name the Master who assigned you this task."

Kematu smirked at her. "I don't have to tell you anything, pig-blood. I honour your uncle to a certain extent – he made the Alik'r great – but you…? I think Irkand has allowed sentimental senility to overcome his judgment when he allowed you to start on the Forging."

"Very brave of you to say such words when my uncle is not around to hear you," Lia noted sardonically. "I trust you have at least sent Iman al-Suda onwards? I would hate to have wasted the past week killing bandits for nothing."

Kematu's brown eyes were hard. "We have."

"Amazing, you got one thing right." Their raised voices were attracting the attention of the other Alik'r from Kematu's unit. Lia would hate to have to fight her way out because it would make her uncle look bad.

"Alduin has caught us all flatfooted," Sudrith, the Forebear second-in-command and resident diplomat, said soothingly. "Though sister, my sources tell me of an interesting allegiance you've made."

"I've joined the Companions of Jorrvaskr," Lia confirmed quietly. "They know of my allegiance to the Alik'r. But I need to be in a neutral faction to best assess both the dragon and civil war situations."

Sudrith nodded slowly. "Have you managed to meet Ulfric Stormcloak?"

"Unfortunately." Lia couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice. "He sent me on the Nord rite of passage to kill an ice wraith on the Sea of Ghosts as proof of my willingness to aid him. And he wants me to be a lackey, not an ally."

Sudrith's eyes went down to the ice wraith tooth hung on a leather thong around her neck. "I see you survived."

"Only because two Companions – sent after me because of the bounty I incurred cleaning up Kematu's mess – found me." Lia sighed. "Windhelm is grossly racist. Because I was polite to a Dunmer, Ulfric's huscarl tried to attack me from behind and I expressed my displeasure by beating him up. That didn't make me friends with Galmar Stone-Fist."

"You should have stayed home and made weapons," Kematu sneered. "At least you're semi-competent at that."

"Sudrith, which Master of the Ansei assigned Kematu to keep track of me?" Lia asked, ignoring the Crown.

"If any did, it would have been one of the Crowns," the Forebear replied soberly. "I'm ashamed to say that we all deserve censure on how we managed our missions."

Lia nodded in acknowledgement of the truth in his words. "And when the dragons are dealt with, I will submit to judgment of the Ansei as a whole."

Tammas, one of the Lhotunics, shook his head sombrely. "I'm sorry, Lia, it has been decided that you and Kematu both answer to the gods in the Trial of the Sword. If we have failed, it is because of the Thrice-Folded amongst us."

Lia blanched. The Trial of the Sword was the manifestation of the Ansei Shehai, the calling of the Soul Sword. "Neither of us are ready for such a trial," she admitted starkly.

"You can refuse and be exiled from the Alik'r," Sudrith continued as Tammas fell silent. "I have no personal quarrel with you, Lia, but there is a sentiment that you reached the Third Folding through… favouritism. Your uncle is fond of you and he has kept you from many dangers."

"And Kematu is just plain incompetent," Ronnic, a half-Nord Forebear Alik'r, noted sardonically.

"If I accept exile, it would kill my uncle," Lia said softly.

"Irkand is nearly as eternal as the Wind Scour Temple itself," Ronnic said. "I voted for you to be spared this. It's not your fault that Irkand asked too much from you. But the will of the majority must prevail."

Lia laid down her scimitar gently. "Then let's get it over and done with."

"You don't want to rest first?" Sudrith asked in mild disbelief.

"I stand a better-than-even chance of dying during the Trial. What's the damned point of having a last meal?"

"As you wish." Sudrith pointed at a small alcove off the main grotto. "Begin your meditations then."

Lia obeyed, sitting down on the faintly moist rock, spongy algae coldly slick even through the thick cloth of her breeches. It was a matter of simple practice to assume the Attitude of the Inward Eye; she opened her gaze to see the faint auras of all living things outline their bodies in a foxfire glow. In the Alik'r Desert, the stark ochres – yellow, brown, orange, white and red – dominated but in Skyrim, the creatures shimmered with the colours of the aurora she discovered was called Kynareth's Veil.

At this point, the average Alik'r would call on Tall Papa, the father-god; Onsi, the god who taught the Yokudans how to pull their knives into swords; Leki, the goddess of aberrant swordsmanship; or HoonDing, the triumph over the infidel, the force that could become sword or crown as needed to protect the Ra Gada.

Lia, on the other hand, called upon Tava, the goddess of the air, for she felt more kinship with the wandering goddess than HoonDing, who was said to look poorly upon those of Orcish blood.

But the western wind was absent here, deep in the grotto, and only the snow-chilled northern wind could be felt. Tava would not answer the prayers of one who had wandered far from Hammerfell.

_"The Ansei Shehai will not answer to Malacath, for he is a god of physicality and a perennial enemy of the Ra Gada besides,"_ her uncle had told her gently. _"Talos… Well, my darling, you know how the Ra Gada feel about Talos for all He ended their foolish infighting. I don't know if other gods will answer your prayers-"_

_ "Lingrah krosis saraan Strundu'ul, voth nid balaan klov praan nau. Naal Thu'umu, mu ofan nii nu, Dovahkiin, naal suleyk do Kaan, naal suleyk do Shor, ahrk naal suleyk do Atmorasewuth. Meyz nu Ysmir, Dovahsebrom. Dahmaan daar rok."_

The words shook the world without with thunder as the Greybeards chanted, formally greeting Ralof Dragonborn. The words unleashed a tempest upon the world within, a blue-white hurricane that shook the planes from Aetherius to Oblivion.

Kematu, who had begun his own meditations, cried out in fear. "What in the name of Tall Papa was that?" he shouted.

Lia instinctively invoked the mental components of the Eye of the Storm, surrounding herself with a centre of calm. "The Thu'um," she answered quietly, voice distant because of the thunder of the Greybeards' Voices. "The power of the First Men; Kynareth gave even the least Nord the Grah Graat, the Battle Cry, to terrify their enemies. Storm, frost and stone are the ways in which the warriors of the north are cold forged."

_Kaan, in this moment of your power, let me prove myself worthy of the Shehai! _Instead of the repeated spiritual hammering and heating that Irkand had told her the Shehai needed, Lia imagined her soul being annealed by the icy tempest on the spiritual plane, drawing out its energy like Onsi did the first copper swords. _Onsi, father of smithcraft, hear my prayers!_

It was a gruelling process, stretching out her soul like this, spinning its essence into a solidified weapon. She completed the blade – short, thick and with a relatively squared end compared to her uncle's katana. It was a ninjato, an Akaviri shortsword, longer than a knife but shorter than the scimitars Lia had never quite felt comfortable. The crossguard was simple, the hilt wrapped in her preferred sharkskin. Unadorned, unlike her uncle who had indulged himself in recreating his serpent-guarded Akaviri katana.

She felt her energy drain, body going cold – for warmth was life and life was warmth in Skyrim. But the blade hovered on the edge of manifestation, refusing to come into being. Was this where the would-be Ansei died, their bodies too weak for their will?

_Talos, Malacath – gods of my mother, I cannot die!_ Not when where was so much she had to do!

The blade became a little more real but Lia's will began to falter. She was trying as hard as she could-

"Tall Papa, grant me your strength," Kematu was praying aloud. "HoonDing, make way for my victories over the infidels, the mongrels amongst our kind-"

_YSMIR, AVATAR OF SHOR! Please, I don't know what name to call you. Please, Lord of the Slain-_

Lia made a strangled noise and ran outside of the grotto. She would fail but she wanted to die under the snow-laden sky, not in a dank hole in the ground.

Opening her eyes, she watched the passage of a hawk cutting through the sky, swooping down on some hapless bunny with a screech. _Kyne…_

She imagined an etched pattern on her blade like the feathers of a hawk before collapsing into darkness.

…

She awoke beside a fire for the second time in as many weeks, Tammas sitting beside her. The Lhotunic's expression was complicated. "Kematu manifested his Soul Sword first," he said bluntly as she sat up, rubbing her head. "He still commands the warband. But we've talked him into heading back home."

"Thank the gods for small blessings," Lia sighed. "So I assume I am exiled?"

"Kematu, for all his posturing, only has the power to throw you out of our warband." Tammas' expression flickered with a dour amusement. "He managed to forge a weak Soul Sword that flickers like foxfire in a swamp. We're going to insist he repeat the Trial in Hammerfell, where our gods are strongest."

The warrior reached down and handed a ninjato forged from what looked like ice to Lia. "Your Soul Sword is solid, Lia bint Rustem. Only the greatest of the Ansei could manage such a feat. But… you called on gods who are not friends to the Ra Gada. Only Onsi answered you, and that was because he is the god of smithcraft, and you are known to him."

On closer inspection, she saw that her ninjato had an orichalcum pommel decorated with a half-moon. It seemed Malacath was aware of her… ancestry. "My mother died a warrior's death, Tammas. I can't deny half of my blood."

"I know." Tammas' expression was now regretful. "You are Ansei and I will testify to it, as will Sudrith. But you belong to gods not our own. I believe the Masters will move for exile from Wind Scour Temple."

"Frandar Hunding went into exile and he ended up saving the Ansei Shehai," Lia pointed out with a sigh. "Am I banished from Hammerfell then?"

"I doubt it." Tammas shook his head. "I honestly think Skyrim is your home though. I have heard of the Companions of Jorrvaskr – they are the heirs of the First Men, as worthy as the Ansei in their way – and I suspect that Soul Sword of yours is a sign that you belong to Kaan and Shor."

He rose gracefully, gesturing to a full pack that was beside the stone he'd been sitting on. "Supplies. Kematu can move for exile, but we can do it on our terms."

Lia's hand clenched on her ninjato. "You know this will set back an alliance between the Stormcloaks and the Alik'r."

Tammas' dark gaze was grim. "From the little you've said of Ulfric Stormcloak, I'm not sure we want to be allied with him. The Ra Gada have enough on their plate without meddling in Skyrim's affairs. If they win their freedom, we'll make an alliance. But we won't coddle them."

She couldn't argue with that. "Tell my uncle that I will see him in Sentinel as soon as I can," Lia said instead.

"I will." The Alik'r bowed. "Winds with you, Lia."

She watched him walk into the grotto where the other Alik'r hid, mingled contempt, hurt and relief flowing through her veins. They had bowed to one barely strong enough to hold what he earned… but she was alive. Tammas could have killed her because she knew too much.

"I don't have time for this," she muttered, rising to her feet and picking up the supplies. Ralof was now recognised as Dragonborn – and she ought to catch up with him after reporting back at Jorrvaskr. By Mowhra and Malacath, what was she going to do now?

And above her the hawk circled, untroubled by the building storm.


End file.
